MEMORANDUM

08SEP16

From: MIDN Do, MIDN Hart

To: Prof. Svetlana Avramov-Zamurovic
Subj: Motor Introduction
Encl: 1. Lab Report
1.

Objectives:

The objective of this lab is to control the speed of the motor by inputting different voltage and waiting period in to
the system to compare the performance of the motor.
2.

Observations and Results:

After we followed through the procedure to open and run mbed, we rotated the shaft for one revolution and counted
800 clicks per revolution. We did not know that this number was the encoder constant needed to figure out the shaft
position. Once we figure out that this number was the encoder constant, it made perfect sense because the revolution
was not measured in degree. It was measured in clicks. Therefore 2*pi = 800 clicks instead of 360 degrees.
Once we figured that out, we were able to write the Matlab code to determine the speed of the shaft from the
position data collected through mbed using the motor speed formula. We then plotted the speed of the shaft at
different voltage input and different waiting period.

Figure 1: Speed of the Motor at Different Voltage and Different Waiting Period

The plot came out the way we expected it to. At 9V the motor spin significantly faster than at 6V and the plot clearly
showed that. However, when we overlapped the motor speed at 6V measured every 5ms, we see something very
interesting. If we supply 6V to the motor, the motor should spin at the same speed regardless of the waiting period.
However, figure 1 shows that the transient phase of 6V 50ms and 6V 5ms is not exactly the same even though it
should be. Why?
Going back to the motor speed equation, the speed of the shaft is measured from the shaft position new (x+1) minus
shaft position old (x) and then divided by the waiting period (dt). This is equation is basically the definition of
derivative. When one take a derivative of the position with respect to time, we get velocity. Because the reader did
not measure the instantaneous velocity of the shaft but instead gave us the position of the shaft every delta t, we
have to use the given speed equation to figure out the average velocity (slope) of the shaft between two positions
every waiting position. The smaller the waiting period (dt) is, the more accurate the actual velocity will be. Figure
one showed exactly that.
The actual speed of the shaft is the same at 6V regardless what the waiting period is. However, because we could not
measure the speed of the shaft, we had to estimate it through the motor speed equation hence why the plot of 6V
50ms and 6V 5ms is a little different during the transient phase. At steady state, the velocity of both line was shown
to be the same which make sense mathematically as well.
Another interesting observation that we made from the graph is that the speed of the motor is somehow negative. We
concluded that the shaft must have spin counterclockwise. If the shaft spin clockwise, the speed of the motor would
have been positive.
3.

Conclusions: The results of this lab made perfect sense to us. If we put in more electric power to a system,
that system should be able to perform at a higher level. The difference in speed measurements of the 6V
50ms and 6V 5ms was also explained using the motor speed equation and apply the principle of derivative
to it.

4.

Comments: This lab was actually very interesting and fun. It helps reinforce a lot of the concepts that we
learned before but never get to actually apply them. It would have been interesting to see how the system
perform at 12V and maybe even higher than 12V.

Very Respectfully,
MIDN Do, MIDN Hart